The Three Biggest Problems with PPC Ads

Unless you live under a rock, you already know how important your online presence is to the success of your business. The problem isn't that you're unaware of the potential in various online marketing campaigns; it's likely that there are too many streams of information inundating you at once.

The Three Biggest Problems with PPC Ads

1. Increased Ad Spend

In comparison to many other online marketing campaigns, PPC ads are expensive (and the prices are just going up). Back when the web marketing gods were in their infancy, PPC gave most businesses a lot of bang for their buck. They brought in a great ROI and were often pennies on the click. Now those ads can cost quite a bit and you have to realize that only a small percentage of the people arriving through PPC traffic will follow the conversion all the way to the check out portal (based off what I’ve seen recently).

2. Expert Knowledge

There's a method to the madness of running PPC campaigns and it takes a good deal of knowledge to run a smooth and profitable campaign. It is highly advisable that an expert be the only one who runs your campaign(s) on a full-time basis. Whether that's in-house marketer or a fantastic search marketing agency that handles all of your PPC ads, it's not something that you can competently do alone just "guessing." All of this means adding more to your investment your campaigns.

3. Trust Issues

Most people automatically tune out paid advertisements. They don't trust advertisements as well as they trust sources, such as known bloggers or writers who are respected for their opinions on set topics. So PPC Ads come with an inherent drawback that a large portion of the viewing audience already believes them to be less reliable just because they are paid advertisements.

None of that necessarily means that you should dump the idea of PPC advertising altogether. Despite what it may sound like, PPC does work extremely well sometimes, you might need to retool your thinking on the role PPC plays in to your overall marketing efforts and be strategic.

If PPC Isn't the Answer, What Are the Alternatives?

There are a number of marketing campaigns that may work well, depending on the business model and time that will be spent on advertising. Social media campaigns can have an immense impact on sales. For instance, sites like Instagram and Pinterest can bring in an amazing amount of traffic due to the natural partnership between visual advertisement and certain products, such as food, clothing, and jewelry. Other businesses have found fantastic followings on Twitter and Facebook, as well as a number of other platforms. SEO content on websites is imperative and often a lot more straightforward than a PPC campaign. The drawback to SEO is that it's constantly evolving and content needs to be updated regularly to keep grabbing readership, so an ongoing strategy would be a must.

Those are a few of the many campaigns that can be used on occasion or on a regular schedule to boost traffic and improve your brand recognition.

Simon Brisk is a seasoned search marketing professional who has been in the industry for more than eight years. He loves the challenge of the constantly changing landscape; it allows him to continually innovate new concepts and ideas on how to future-proof his data driven search marketing company's service offering.

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Comments

Great article. I've brought up similar points in discussions with clients who have asked about the viability of PPC ads for their business. A prospect recently inquired about PPC and I told them that since I was not an expert, I couldn't speak to all of the benefits of running a PPC ad, BUT that I wouldn't recommend doing so right out of the gate.

I wouldn't recommend new businesses or companies that have recently undergone a redesign or marketing strategy to do PPC right away. I think it would be more cost-effective to first try to rank for certain keywords organically by building up a reputation for being the knowledgable in that area.

Going that route first mitigates issues 1 and 3 that you listed, and makes find and working with a PPC expert that much better.